Cathe’s High Reps

High Reps is another strength workout by Cathe. The focus of this one is muscle endurance. I really enjoyed this workout and found it surprisingly tough–tougher than I expected, actually. I was already pretty sore from Cathe’s Maximum Intensity Strength, so not sure if that had anything to do with how challenging I found High Reps, but I was trembling by the end of the workout. I was expecting a light weight workout with a bazillion reps–but Cathe surprised me by using moderate weights on most of the exercises which burned my muscles out faster than I expected. She did have a lot of reps, but not an excessive amount. She kept it interesting by varying the tempo/count for each move: up three down one, up one down three, up 4 down 4, up 2 down 2, lots of “half” reps/lifts and low ends, lots of pulsing. It got kind of painful.

High Reps is 65 minutes long; 6 minute warm up, 55 minute training time and 4 minute stretch. 5:30 minutes of the training time is abdominal work.

Equipment needed for this workout is a barbell, dumbbells, a sliding disk, a dynaband and a yoga mat. She also uses a chair for one of the back exercises. Cathe does give you some time to set up at the beginning of each segment, however, not a lot, so it’s a good idea to have everything within easy reach so you can set up quickly. The music in this workout is great and motivating; and I found the workout went by quickly.

Cathe uses a barbell with light plates on it for the warm up; she goes through a variety of basic moves–deadlifts, overhead press, rows, squats, lunges, bicep curls.

Training period exercises:

Lower body (6 minutes):
Barbell squats
Plie barbell squats
Hover squats with dumbbells

Shoulders (7 minutes):
Barbell overhead press
Barbell or dumbbell (Cathe uses the barbell but some of the exercises used dumbbells) wide-grip upright row
Lateral raise with dumbbells
Band pulls


Back (6:30 minutes):
Overhand barbell rows
One arm rows with dumbbell and band
Underhand barbell rows
One arm rows with dumbbell and band
“Y” pulls with band (seated on floor)
“T” pulls with band (seated on floor)

Lower body (6 minutes):
Static barbell lunges
Deadlifts
Calf raises


Biceps (5 minutes):
Dumbbell bicep curl with bands
Hammer curls (dumbbells)
Barbell curls

Triceps (7 minutes):
Overhead tricep extension with dumbbells
Tricep kickbacks with dumbbells
Lying tricep extensions with dumbbells
Tricep dips

Lunges (6 minutes):
This next section is done with one foot on the disk:
Disk lunges
Crossback (or curtsey) lunges
Side lunge


Chest (5:30 minutes):
Push ups
Chest flies
Push ups

You finish with 5:30 minutes of abdominal work then a 4 minute stretch. I found this to be a challenging workout. I’m not sure if part of it wasn’t because I was so sore from my last strength workout, but I was trembling by the end of the workout–and my shoulders in particular are aching. Definitely an excellent endurance workout that will fit nicely into my regular rotation.

It has premixes (of course!): upper body only (39 minutes), lower body only (35 minutes), full workout with upper body first (65 minutes), full workout with lower body first (65 minutes) and scrambled (65 minutes). The premixes include warm up and cool down.